


AkuSai Month 2019 || Berserk

by Rhymepod195



Series: AkuSai on Main [9]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Akusai Month 2019, Berserk Mode, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-24 22:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19732861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhymepod195/pseuds/Rhymepod195
Summary: Yeehaw it’s Akusai Month. Let’s Go Crazy. Go Stupid.





	1. Day 1 || “You’re going to be fine”

“You’re going to be fine _. _ ”, Lea urged, though the fear on his face told a different story. He hadn’t paid attention for just a moment, had messed up when he  _ knew _ he had to watch Isa’s blind side. This was his fault.

Isa was in his arms, the blue-haired man struggling to get a single breath into his lungs, an ugly wheezing sound with every laboured attempts to force oxygen into his system, a sure sign of a collapsed lung despite the death grip on Lea’s sleeves.

They weren’t invulnerable anymore, they were Somebodies now, and even despite Lea being a keyblade wielder he had yet to figure out how to wield magic that weren’t his flames. Flames did not heal collapsed lungs. “Please hold on, the others will be here in just a moment.”, he tried so hard to get Isa to stay away, to keep him breathing, keep him awake and  _ alive _ . He couldn’t lose Isa, not now, not that they were finally free and together. “They’ll be here soon, I promise.”, he whispered, one hand frantically brushing through Isa’s hair, cupping his cheek while the other one held on of Isa’s hands. 

“Lea! Isa! What happened?”, Sora called out as he hurried over, having spotted them after defeating the stunned Heartless Lea had left to fuss over Isa.

“He needs healing, he can’t breathe.”, Lea replied, only briefly glancing up to Sora before returning his attention to Isa, quietly reassuring him that he’ll be fine. “I’d do it myself but…”, he lifted a hand, a brief flicker of flames coming from his skin. “I don’t think these will do.”

Sora nodded, though a shiver ran down his spine at the painfully loud wheeze Isa gave trying to breathe, the older man’s eyebrows furrowed and sweat on his forehead from the effort it took to keep himself breathing, unable to even speak it took so much from him. Sora knelt down beside Isa, placing his hands on the man’s side where he felt that there was not the usual movement that would indicate breathing.

“Heal!”, Sora called on his healing magical abilities, a green glow spreading from his hands, magical vines and flowers sprouting from beneath his palms and over the hurt area, nearly encompassing Isa’s entire side before dissipating, blown away by some non-existent wind.

Isa shot up into a sitting position, taking a deep gasping breath before coughing out all that stray air that had been sitting in his abdomen from his collapsed lung, alternating between deep breaths and coughing before finally regaining his breath, sighing as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Thank you, Sora.”

“No problem!”, Sora grinned, very happy that he had helped.

“Are you okay?”, Lea asked, one hand resting on Isa’s back, leaning over so he could see Isa’s face better.

“I am now, no thanks to you.”, despite the words there was no bite to his voice, wiping his hand down his face. “You worry too much, Sora’s magic did more than enough to put me back into one piece.”

Lea couldn’t help but huff while Sora just continued to beam at the praise, a pout now on the redhead’s lips. Isa found it positively hilarious how much of a polar opposite their reactions were, though he didn’t show it beyond a fond smile.

“Come on, let’s go to Twilight Town. I’ll get you some ice cream to make up for it.”, that evidently got both their attention as they immediately perked up at the mention of ice cream. And before they knew it, Sora was excitedly on his gummyphone, calling the others to say that Isa was buying ice cream. “Hey, I didn’t say I was buying ice cream for  _ everyone _ ! I’m not made of Munny.”

Lea laughed at the indignant stare on Isa’s face, shaking his head. “Well, you have to now. Don’t worry, I’ll help you shoulder this terribly delicious burden.”, he leaned his chin on Isa’s shoulder, his hands patting his biceps to ‘comfort’ him, though it came closer to teasing than anything else.

“How very kind of you.”, Isa gave Lea a half-hearted glower, though he wasn’t truly upset.


	2. Day 2 || “I love you.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where i Really went Crazy, went Stupid.

It took them a long time to figure out their feelings. Lea’s had already been a Somebody again by the time Isa became one again, so he’s had a bit more time to figure out his emotions, but for Isa it was all new again.

Not feeling emotions, only remembering what they felt like, left him unable to cope with the more intense emotions. But Lea was always there to pick him up again, and Isa could appreciate his dedication to not leaving him as an emotional wreck.

He still found himself jealous when Lea had so much fun with his other friends but finding himself unable with connect to them, not in the same way that Lea was able to. Sure, there was Xion, but even she had that connection he was lacking with the others. He didn’t know how to act around them, and after everything he had done as Saïx he felt he didn’t really  _ deserve _ to be around them.

Aqua was amongst the first to reach out to him, inviting him on a trip into town, just her and Terra accompanied by him and Lea. It was a trip out to town to get some drinks, just adult bonding time between four disasters that were just barely learning how to adult. (They were all still trying to figure out how to do taxes.)

“So, how’s Apartment Hunting going?”, Aqua asked, sipping at her drink, glancing between Lea and Isa. “Are you still going to get an apartment together, or are you going separate ways? There’s always space for you at the mansion, you know.”

Isa shook his head, setting down his own drink after finishing his sip. “No, I know. Not that we don’t appreciate the offer but…”, he bit the inside of his cheek, unsure how to really voice what he felt.

“It’s just nice to have our own place, y’know.”, Lea helpfully supplied. “Making rent is just easier living together. Besides, between my getting Munny off of Heartless and Isa joining the RGRC I’m sure we’ll be fine.”, he said after another swig of his drink, dangling the bottle in his hand not much unlike he did with his chakrams.

“Easy with the bottle, you’ll drop it if you keep drinking like you are.”, Aqua said with a chuckle, setting her own glass back down on the table.

“The Recovery Committee, huh? Sounds fun.”, Terra commented, looking over to Isa. “Any position in particular?”

“Accounting. I’m good with numbers.”, he said flatly before taking another sip of his drink.

“You make it sound very dry.”

“Oh, it absolutely is, but it gives me something to focus on. Just… administrational things in general are something I’ve become pretty adept at.. you know.”, he quirked an eyebrow for a moment before a long swig of his drink, relishing in the burn of alcohol down his throat.

“Ahh, yeah, makes sense. Now I want to know how good with numbers you are.”, Terra gave a tipsy grin.

“Oh? Are you challenging my math skills? Alright, let’s see.”, Isa immediately rose to the challenge, ignoring the drunken giggle from Lea next to him, and Aqua seemed just as amused. “Without looking at the prices, I’d say… Lea is at about 25 with his mountain of bottles, I’m at about, let’s say… 14. Terra, you got the strong stuff, but you’ve only had a few so you’re at about 17, and Aqua got the fancier drinks, which are automatically more expensive, so you’re at about 20. So, if we were to pay right now we’d be at about 76 Munny. Sound about right?”

“Huh, that  _ is _ a good estimate, but let’s see how it goes with the actual prices.”, Terra said, grabbing for the menu and flipping through it to find the prices and listing off the prices - which he got Isa to calculate just to poke at him.

“Well, the final would be 77 Munny. I almost had it right.”, Isa said with a smug smirk, cheeks a touch flushed now that the alcohol was kicking in, though Lea next to him was very drunk by now, downing the last bit of his near-empty bottle. “Easy, you’re going to fall out of your chair.”, he said with a chuckle, keeping the redhead steady as he swayed in his seat.

“‘m  _ fine _ , Isa.”, Lea tried to insist despite the slight slur to his speech.

“I can see that, now ease up on the drinks. You’ll end up blackout drunk if you keep going like that.”, he warned him, though he knew it wouldn’t help much. Once Lea had his eyes set on something there was little that would dissuade him.

“Oh, you worry too much~ ‘Sides, I only had uh.. However many beers.”, Lea waved his hands about in a vague gesture, nearly tipping his chair backwards, though he was quickly caught by Isa.

“Evidently too many already.”, he gave Lea a teasing elbow to the side after making sure he wasn’t going to attempt to tip his chair over again.

Eventually Lea just got too drunk, nearly tripping every other step, Isa giggling softly as he caught Lea yet again. “Lea, please, one foot after the other.”

“‘M fiiiiiine, Isa, jus’.. a little tipsy.”

“A little more than that, actually.”, he said, trying to keep Lea upright.

“I’ve got a solution.”, Terra said with a grin before bending over and picking Lea up fireman-carry style, to which Lea loudly objected by flailing and screeching for Terra to put him down. Terra didn’t listen, continuing to carry him ahead, threatening to dunk him into the fountain if he didn’t stop.

Aqua came up next to Isa, chuckling as she watched the little spectacle. “You’re fond of Lea, aren’t you?”, she asked, and even though the question seemed innocent enough, Isa knew better.

“... Yes, very much so.”, he admitted, the alcohol in his system tearing down some of the walls he had built around himself.

“Have you told him that?”, she nodded over towards where Lea he was still flailing about as Terra held him dangerously low over the water of the fountain. Thankfully no one else saw this spectacle since it was so late at night.

Isa sighed softly, a fond smile on his face as he watched Lea make a fool of himself. “Not directly. I like him, yes, but…”

“But?”

“His friendship is too important for me to mess up. I’m not selfish enough to ruin what we have because of my own wants.”

“You don’t want him rejecting you, then?”

“Yes.”

Aqua chuckled at that, tugging Isa along to walk over to them as Lea freed himself from Terra’s grip, managing to avoid the fate of ending up in the fountain and soaking wet. “He’s more fond of you than you realise, Isa. You should see him when he’s out on missions with us. He’s always worried about leaving you back home while he’s with us.”

Isa snorted softly, shaking his head. “He’s like that with everyone.”

”Is he, though?”, she teased. “You’re the first person he talks about on any topic we ask him about.”

“Hm…”

“Iiisaaaaaa!”, Lea whined as he flung himself around the shorter man and against his back, arms wrapped around his middle. “Terra’s bein’ mean.”, he pouted, chin resting on Isa’s shoulder as he glared at Terra who was still grinning.

“Oh, is he now? Or did you bring that upon yourself?”, he teased, reaching up to brush his fingers through Lea’s hair, causing the redhead to close his eyes, though he was still pouting as he pushed his head into the affection. However, Isa  _ did _ notice the look he received from Aqua at the affectionate action. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.”, she said with a knowing look, a badly-hidden smirk on her face. “Come on, we should get our very drunk porcupine man back to his bed.”, she teased, motioning for them to follow her. “You two can sleep over at the mansion, I doubt any of us are sober enough to fly the Gummyship.”

“‘M not a porcupine.”, Lea mumbled, nuzzling his face into the side of Isa’s neck, refusing to move from that position, even as they struggled up the stairs to the guest bedroom they were given for the night.

~~~~

It’s been about a month since that first outing to the bar with Aqua and Terra, and a few more had followed, and each time Aqua urged him to just  _ confess _ to Lea already, that he was just stalling because of his paranoia (which was entirely accurate, but he didn’t say that).

Right now Isa and Lea were in their new apartment though, just relaxing after having spent the entire day unpacking boxes and bickering about interior decorating.

It was sundown, warm golden-orange light flooding their living room where there were still a couple of boxes sitting around which they were planning on unpacking the next day.

They were firmly planted on their couch, lounging as they talked, a bottle of cheap beer in their hands, their words occasionally interrupted by a bout of laughter from either of them at some corny joke the other made.

“I cannot believe you did that.”

“Yup, right across the courtyard.”

“You are  _ insane! _ ”

“Aw, but you love that about me~”

Lea’s words brought a flush to Isa’s cheeks, pausing before trying to cover it up by taking a sip of his beer, though clearly he wasn’t fast enough because Lea now had his shit-eating grin on his face - which usually only spelled trouble.

“Aw~ Isa, am I embarrassing you?”

“I have  _ no _ idea what you’re talking about.”

“C’mere, you!”, and with that Lea practically tackled him, attempting to pinch his cheek with one hand and almost spilling his beer with the other.

“Hey! Get off, you brute!”, Isa objected, managing to save his beer by extending his arm out to the side as he tried to fend off Lea, his free hand on his chest to keep him away, craning his neck away to avoid the cheek-pinching.

“I’m not doing anything though~”, Lea teased, managing to set his bottle on their small coffee table, now trying to pinch both of Isa’s cheeks rather than just the one. 

“Lea!”, Isa warned, putting his bottle on the ground next to the couch before giving a soft snarl, drawing on just a small touch of his berserk state to push Lea away. However, instead of just a shove he overshot in his momentum and ended up on top of Lea, practically pinning him against the couch.

They stared at each other for a few solid moments, and Isa could feel his cheeks becoming hotter and hotter as Lea just looked… dumbfounded.

Lea blinked a few times, beginning to register what had just happened, and the position he was in. Isa was above him, the light shining in from the window behind him creating a near-halo around his head, blue strands of hair falling to outline his red cheeks as his turquoise eyes widened with realisation.

“... I apologize, I overreacted.”, he eventually broke the silence between them, moving to sit up. Instead, Lea reached out, one hand gently cupping Isa’s cheek, making him pause and look down at the redhead below him, unsure how to react. He leaned into the affection, he always automatically did (as did Lea when it was in reverse), uncertainty in his eyes as to what was going to happen next.

“I… You’re fine. Just.. don’t be mad, ok?”, Isa was about to ask what he meant when he was pulled down into a kiss.

Lea’s lips felt softer than he expected, the fingers carding through his hair gentler than he thought they would be. Lea’s standard state of being was hot, and hard, and fast, so this wasn’t what he had expected for their first kiss. He hadn’t expected there to be a kiss  _ at all _ . Though his surprise eventually melted away as his brain truly computed what was happening and he let out a sigh of relief that Lea wasn’t going to reject him, that this was  _ real _ . So, he finally relaxed into the kiss, eyes falling closed as he tilted his head to lean into the kiss properly.

It felt like ages that they just stayed there, kissing and revelling in the moment. But alas, their lungs did still require oxygen to function, so they were soon forced to break their kiss, though they stayed close.

“I love you.”, if anyone asked, neither of them would be able to say who had said it first, but in that moment it didn’t matter. The words were out there now, and as they settled in Isa surged back into another kiss, hands cupping Lea’s cheeks as Lea looped his arms around Isa’s neck to pull him closer.

It felt like a hundred kisses that became one, and each new meeting of their lips felt a little more real, like this wasn’t just some shared fever dream, that they could  _ have _ this.

“We waited  _ way _ too long for that.”, Lea was the first to say something, though it still didn’t feel entirely real.

“On that, we can agree.”, and that was all the conversation they got out before Lea got impatient, pulling Isa down for more kisses.


	3. Day 3 || "Don't be Dramatic, it's just a cold."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea caught a cold, and he hates it. Fortunately, Isa is there to help.

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s just a cold.”, Isa shook his head as he watched Lea flop backwards into his bed with an exasperated groan of frustration.

“I’m a keyblade master, Isa! A flurry of dancing flames!  **_FLAMES!_ ** ” he raised his arms into the air, flames around his fists before they dissipated with his next couple of coughs, arms once again falling onto the bed. “I’m not supposed to get sick!”, he complained, sniffing and immediately coughing after as he briefly cut off his air flow through his nose. 

“Well, you’re sick now. That’ll teach you to stay out during a storm. Flames or no flames.”, Isa chuckled softly at Lea’s antics, sitting down on the bed with him, checking his temperature with the back of his hand, pursing his lips a little when he could immediately tell he was already running a fever. “Well, you’re certainly burning up.”

“That mean I can leave bed now?”

“The exact opposite, actually.”, that got him an even more annoyed groan from Lea who, in his frustration, just muffled his face with his pillow. Isa snorted at the display, lifting the pillow slightly so he could see at least one of Lea’s eyes. “I don’t think smothering yourself will make the cold go away any quicker.”

“I can  _ try. _ ”, Lea huffed, pulling the pillow back over his face, groaning into it. Isa knew he wasn’t going to be moving much for the time being, so he slipped out of the room to instead prepare him something to be less upset over.

Sure enough, when he came back inside the room Lea was still attempting to smother the cold out of him with a pillow, which made him chuckle softly. He set the tray of food he had prepared down on the bedside table, shaking his head as he plucked the pillow from Lea’s face, ignoring the complaints from his boyfriend.

“You don’t need to smother yourself, Sunshine. However, what you  _ do _ need to do is get some food in you, in case you’ve forgotten.”, he said, placing the tray into Lea’s lap, biting back a soft snort at the surprised look on Lea’s face.

“Is that your cream soup?”, Lea asked, a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Of course it is.”, he couldn’t help but feel smug at the hopeful look, his ego being stroked just a touch that Lea liked his cooking  _ this _ much.

“Hell yeah!”, he said, immediately digging into his soup, sighing in content at the first spoonful of soup, relaxing visibly.

“Feeling better?”

“Mhm….”, his eyes were closed, spoon still between his lips despite already having eaten the soup, a dopey smile on his face.

“Glad to see you’re done trying to smother yourself with your pillow.”, he said with a fond chuckle, pressing a kiss to Lea’s cheeks, which made the redhead all the happier, despite having just loudly complained about being sick.

“If I get in-bed breakfast like this, I might get sick more often.”, he said with a wink, a grin on his face as he took his next spoonful of soup.

Isa snorted at that, shaking his head in bemusement. “I certainly hope not. After all, you’d have to miss a lot of ice cream time while sick.”

“Fair enough.”, he huffed, not wanting to miss quality time with what they had fondly dubbed the ‘Ice Cream Squad’.


	4. Day 4 || Stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isa once had a habit of stargazing. He picked it up again after being recompleted.

Isa has always had a fascination with the stars, so he liked to sneak out of his house to go to a nearby hill to stargaze, watching the stars above shine, and try to map out the constellations. Occasionally, Lea would join him with plenty of teases to boot - though he never genuinely made fun of Isa’s hobby. Besides, it was endearing to him, the way Isa’s eyes lit up when he tried to show Lea a ‘new’ constellation he had found.

After the defeat of Xehanort, Isa had picked up that hobby again, and he was currently on his back on a hill just outside of Radiant Garden, hands resting just beneath his chest. Lea was next to him, though his focus was more on Isa than the sky.

“You know, I still don’t get how this is exciting to you.”, he commented, a teasing smirk on his face. “I mean, they’re  _ stars _ . It’s not like they’re gonna go anywhere.”

“It being exciting isn’t the point, Lea.”, Isa replied, rolling his eyes. “I distinctly remember telling you that once before already.”

Lea graced that reply with a huff, crossing his arms, which only amused Isa, a smile slipping on his face.

They stayed silent again after that, the silence only interrupted by their breathing, and the sound of wind through grass.

“Hm…”, Isa’s eyebrows furrowed a little before he extended his arm, palm flat and facing the sky, tilting slightly to the right.

“What’cha doing? High-fiving the sky?”

“No, I’m measuring the stars.”

“With your hand?”

“M-hm. Remember that world Sora told us about? The sea-farers there used it to find their way across the ocean without maps.”

“Ohhh, yeah. Sounds about right. So, measure anything good out of the sky?”

“Well, right now I’m looking at the Cetus constellation. Underneath that, Eridanus and Fornax.”, he adjusted his hand to align with those constellations. “Today isn’t the clearest of nights though, so I can’t see half as much as I’d like to.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. Wasn’t there a meteor shower that one time when we were kids?”

“Oh, definitely. We could see the milky way and everything.”, a fond smile came to Isa’s lips at the memory, to see Lea so excited to drag him out in the middle of the night to go see the Meteor Shower.


	5. Day 5 || Reports

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axel struggles with writing, and Saix decides to help.

“Your report is late.”, Saïx’s voice pierced the silence of Axel’s room, causing the redhead to nearly jump out of his seat, but instead turned to Saïx with a half-hearted glare.

“Hey, I’m working on it! You’ll get it later.”, he made a vague hand gesture, one hand covering the woefully scribbled on paper that’s meant to be the report. Saïx just quirked an eyebrow at him, walked across the room to stand beside Axel, shooing his hand off of the report.

“... I can’t read this.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“No, I genuinely can’t read this.”, he picked up the paper, evading Axel’s hand attempting to grab at the paper. “Bad day?”

“Why do you think it’s taking to damn long? If it wasn’t I’d be asleep right now.”, Axel huffed, crossing his arms, eyebrows furrowed and frowning.

He only looked up again when he heard Saïx pulled over another chair, sitting down in it and getting out a new piece of paper to write the report on, legs crossed and ready to write.

“What are you doing?”, he asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“What do you think? Just tell me what happened, I’ll write it down.”, Saïx deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. “Besides, this isn’t the first time we’ve done this.”

Axel hesitated, narrowing his eyes at the piece of paper as though glaring at it would make the words magically appear on it - though alas he had no such luck.

“Lea…”, Saïx sighed, his normally stoic scowl softening, and Axel swore that just for a moment his eyes seemed a little less golden, even if just for a moment. Like this was Isa he was talking to again, not Saïx. “I’m not going to let Xemnas punish you for something you can’t help. I promised you that, remember?”

It was Axel’s turn to sigh, shrugging and scratching the back of his head, averting his eyes for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. “I know, I know.”

“But...?”

“It’s just… dumb.”, he glanced over to Saïx, only to receive another raised eyebrow. “Not you, but just…”, he paused, trying to think of the right words. “This.”, he made a vague gesture to around them, frowning. “Of all the things I get to keep after becoming a Nobody it’s  _ this _ .”

“Having dyslexia and dyscalculia isn’t something you can just snap into non-existence, Axel. Which is why I’m helping.”

Axel gave a short huff of a laugh, tipping his head backwards to look up at the ceiling, twining his hands behind his head. “Man, things really haven’t changed that much, huh.”

“No, I suppose not. However, this report is still late, and I’d rather not have to explain that to Xemnas.”, Saïx didn’t admit it, he couldn’t while in the Castle That Never Was, but even just Xemnas’ name left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He knew he was up to something, and he wanted to know  _ what _ .

“Right, gotta keep in the boss-man’s good graces to keep from being turned into a dusk.”

“I’m trying to keep  _ you _ from being turned into one, which is harder than you might expect. You have a talent for irritating him.”, Axel looked back over to Saïx as he said that, and saw a very evident smirk on his face, which only made him grin in return.

“What can I say? It’s a talent, unlike anything that requires reading comprehension.”

“We can’t all be perfect.”

“Right, so, these Shadows pop up, and I defeat them pretty easily, except for every Shadow I defeat two more show up - like the world’s most annoying Hydra.”, that description got a small snort out of  ~~ Isa ~~ Saïx, which he counted as a small victory in and of itself. “So, I decided “Actually, fuck this.”, and got to higher ground, and thankfully these shadows can’t climb trees. I keep going, and eventually find this Huge Heartless that keeps popping out shadows. It was really weird - like a heart tank, almost, but instead of just hoarding the hearts it just pumped them into shadows that were attracted to the hearts. However, pumping those shadows full of hearts seemed to give it control of those shadows.”

“Hm..”, Saïx nodded as he wrote along, tapping his lower lip with the pen he was holding. “That sounds strange.”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly! Anyways, I decided that it was a safer bet destroying the thing rather than let it amass more shadows and who knows what else.”

“So, you destroyed it?”

“I mean, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. It wasn’t so fun getting through its small army of shadows though, those were annoying.”

“I can imagine.”, Saïx mused, writing for a minute or so more before putting the pen away, moving to get up again. “This should placate Xemnas, but try not to have reports be late. And next time you’re struggling with it, just come find me. Got it memorized?”, he couldn’t help but smirk at the near-offended look Axel gave him as he used his ever-so-often used catchphrase.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Smartass.”, Axel swatted at him, though he couldn’t help but smile. This felt good, just bantering with his friend, and just for that small moment he could pretend they were still Lea and Isa, rather than Axel and Saïx.

“Being a Smartass has kept us both alive up to now, it’s not a habit I intend on breaking.”, he said as he got up, pushing his chair back in and walking past Axel, opening a dark corridor to turn in the report. However, before he stepped through the dark portal he paused, sighing softly before turning, walking back towards Axel, manually tilting his head up so that Axel looked up at him as he stood behind him.

“What?”, he asked, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “Don’t you have to go meet the boss-man--”

Before he could finish the sentence Saïx had leaned down to press their lips together, a motion that, at first, had Axel freezing up in surprise before relaxing, exhaling through his nose as he reached up to brush his gloved fingers through Saïx’s blue hair, feeling its softness even through the thick black gloves they wore.

“You are the most stubborn man I have ever met, I hope you know that.”, Saïx said once he had broken the kiss, though it was obviously something he only did reluctantly.

“Aw, you wouldn’t have me any other way, though.”, Axel replied with a smirk.

“True enough.”

~~~~~

“How curious.”, Xemnas’ deep baritone voice near-echoed through The Place Where Nothing Gathers, holding a piece of paper in his hands, golden eyes scanning the page’s words. “This is supposed to be Axel’s report, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then how come this is  _ your _ handwriting I am reading, Lunar Diviner?”, Xemnas’ gaze moved from the page to where Saïx was sitting, a hard to read expression on his face. He’s never had the most readable of faces, despite how emotive he was.

“Well, well, well. It sounds like to me someone has a soft spot for our resident Assassin.”, Xigbar piped up, a smirk on his face as his gaze bore into Saïx, trying to get a rise out of him - to get  _ any _ kind of reaction out of him.

“Axel’s handwriting was unreadable, and I thought it appropriate to rewrite it for better comprehension.”, Saïx replied, face neutral and stoic, not giving either of them even a little bit of an edge on him. Being around them was a game of life and death, even if Xigbar made it feel like anything but.

“Is that why the report is late?”, Xemnas asked, raising an eyebrow at him, arms resting on the armrests of their massive seats, page loosely held between his middle- and index finger, threatening to fall to the ground if a breeze had been present.

“Yes, it took me longer than expected to transcribe the report.”

“Hm… I see.”, Xemnas’ eyes narrowed, not quite believing Saïx. “See to it that it won’t happen again. It would be tragic if something were to happen to one of our own for such an unfortunate discretion.”

“Of course.”


End file.
